They are the last public places in N.J. where you can legally smoke inside. But an analysis found unhealthy air quality levels in every casino — even in designated non-smoking areas NJ Advance Media photo illustration
The reek of tobacco hits you almost immediately — thick and stale and inescapable.
On this particular summer afternoon at the Golden Nugget in Atlantic City, the smoke’s most obvious source is a row of video slot machines on the near side of the casino floor, where a group of women sit together like air traffic controllers, incessantly tapping the spin buttons with one hand, chain smoking with the other.
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The air testing conducted by NJ Advance Media utilized an AirBeam Mini, a palm-sized air quality testing device by HabitatMap. Inside is a tiny sensor able to count and measure the size of particulate matter by using the reflected light of a laser hitting particles drawn in by small fan.
Secondhand smoke contains tiny particles of 2.5 micrometers or less — about 30 times smaller than a single hair on one’s head — known as PM 2.5, which is a health threat when it is inhaled deep into the lungs.
An independent evaluation by California regulators in July gave the AirBeam Mini good marks for accuracy with measurements that “strongly correlated” with the government’s own high-end reference instruments.
We visited each of the casinos for an hour or more on Friday afternoons in June and July this summer. The entire floor of each casino was surveyed, including all smoking and non-smoking areas.
The data collected by the monitor is updated each second, which fed into a mobile phone app that averages those readings in 5-second intervals.
The Environmental Protection Agency considers PM 2.5 concentrations below 9 micrograms per cubic meter of air (over 24 hours) to be in the ‘good’ range.” On the Boardwalk, the ambient air quality averaged 1.8 micrograms per cubic meter. (Smoking is actually prohibited on the Boardwalk, though you do often see people lighting up there.)
Inside two of the Atlantic City casinos, though, spikes of more than 240 micrograms per cubic meter were recorded, a very high level rated as “hazardous” on the EPA index. In seven other casinos, PM 2.5 peaks ranged from 130.2 to 220.6 micrograms — concentrations rated as “very unhealthy” by the EPA.
Average particulate levels based on all the air analysis of all the data collected in both the smoking and non-smoking areas were found to be unhealthy, as defined by the EPA, in seven of the casinos.
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